Send It Back Without Guilt

Last night I went to a local establishment with four friends to celebrate my friend Sara’s birthday. Celebrating with food is a regular occasion around here. I have to be very careful to remember that someone else’s birthday is not my excuse to go off the rails so I try and stick to my normal eating even at parties, which is not always easy.

My trick to evenings out is that I order two starters and try and withhold from the rest. I must admit I did dip my spoon in the complimentary birthday desserts and they were well worth whatever thousands of calories they had.

But let’s back up and talk about the rest of the meal. I started with a favorite, Burrata, the mozzarella cheese with the cream center, served with yummy tomatoes. It was the perfect summer taste on a hot night. To follow it I ordered the Ahi Tuna with peppers, as did two of my other friends.

After enjoying such a good first course I was completely taken aback when a small hunk of white tuna was placed in front of me. Since I only planned on eating two small starters I wanted every bite to be perfect. I looked at the very over cooked fish, which should have been served dark red and barley warmed on the outside and knew it was wrong. The other two servings to my friends were the same hot mess.

I took a bite and declared it inedible and announced I was sending it back. My much nicer friends were not as inclined until the I summoned the waiter who had not delivered the fish and showed him the bright white flesh. An audible gasp came from the waiter. “This is not right,” he said. Then all the fish went back.

From my vantage point only I could see the chef as she looked at the dishes and threw a towel at the sous who was obviously responsible. It took just a few moments since the cooking time on the dish was supposed to be barley a minute, but some perfect tuna arrived at our table with the apologies of the chef. Following that course the kitchen sent an unordered dessert with their compliments — An apology without making a big deal of it.

I know I am a difficult customer. I am quick to voice my complaint so that an establishment has an opportunity to make me happy right then and there. I also will return and give them more business. What I do the next time is give implicit instructions about how I want my order. So to ensure this same mistake does not happen to me I will tell them that I want my tuna very rare.

I eat lunch every Wednesday at the same place where I play Mah Jongg with my friends. I always order a salad with the most specific instructions on how I want it — extra lettuce, freshly grilled hot chicken, dressing on the side. I am sure the kitchen has a dartboard with my picture on it, but I am saving them many thrown away salads because they get it right if they follow my request. I can’t expect people to be mind readers and know exactly what I want. It is much easier to tell them and be happy than it is to get something disappointing, keep my mouth shut and never return. Yeah, there is little chance I will ever keep my mouth shut, I just hope my friends will still eat with me.

If the Good Die Young I’m Gonna Be Bad

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When my friend Danny passed away I pulled out a photo album from our wedding to get a picture of him. I opened it up and as I flipped through the pages I came upon the one I was thinking of. Strangely the three other pictures on the same page were all of friends of mine who all left this world much too early. My college roommate Lauren who died of breast cancer, my friend Herb who I went to school in France with who had an aneurism and my beach housemate Art who died of AIDS. All those friends went in their thirties. Now Danny with cancer at 59. Somehow it seems like way too many good people dying too young.

I guess that these people had done what they were put on this earth to do fast. At Danny’s service today there was a universal feeling about what a wonderful guy he was and not just because he was gone. He truly was always kind, thoughtful and full of humor to every person. Based on this ratio of the really good people going young I am going to slow down my doing any good works, cause if the good die young I’m going to be bad.

After the emotional roller coaster of this day I went back to my friend David and John’s for the comfort of old friends. We went to a great new restaurant and followed it up with a walking tour of the neighborhood. When we got home we celebrated David’s birthday with some tiny tarts. I broke down and had one bite of the chocolate and one of the lemon curd. I think this counts as my being bad for today, but I’m going to have to find some non-food ways to be bad if I am going to be alive for the next forty years.

The Silver Lining

I spent today in the car driving to Washington DC so I can attend Danny Koch’s memorial service tomorrow. Since I lived in DC for ten years, coming back is like coming home. Add to that I am staying with my friends John and David who I introduced and have been best friends for the last 30 years.

David was out on a trip when I got here but John welcomed me as only a friend who has known me since college could do. We went to meet my sister Janet and her girlfriend Sophie for dinner at a great restaurant called Range. At last I got to meet Sophie. Since I was sick on Christmas day I am the last person in my family to get to know her. I have really been missing out. Even John knew Sophie long before I did since he is friends with Janet. It is funny how the people in my life intersect without my being involved.

After dinner John and I went back to his house and David arrived from the airport. Suddenly I am twenty five years old again. I may have had to make this trip for the saddest of reasons, but the silver lining is I am having a wonderful reunion with so many people I love.

Life is short. We never know when our time is going run out. I am going to use this opportunity to spend time with people who make me happy, make me laugh and make a difference in my world.

Good Lighting is Everything

As I am trying to whittle down my thousands of photos from Africa to a few hundred for a photo book that won’t bore the casual friend who asks about the trip one thing is clear; the lighting is almost the most important factor in determining a great photo from a so-so one. This is not news to me and out in the bush I had limited control over what I could push my camera to do. If only I had taken more lessons on actually how to use the powerful equipment I owned I might have been able to do more, but overall I think I got more than enough great material.

As I age I find that lighting is a crucial element in my everyday life. When I was younger I did not appreciate how great my eyes were. So many times my father would say something positive about my “young” eyes and what they could see. I never had to wear glasses until I was about 45 and then the deadly readers became required.

At first if I had bright enough light I could make due when trying to read tiny writing on a hotel bottle of shampoo, or is that body lotion I am about to put in my hair? Now even a thousand watt bulb does not help me in that situation. Why don’t hotels realize that old farts in the shower are not wearing their reading glasses and at least make the “S” in a 32 point font or bigger?

Today, while playing Mah Jongg in the dark Dover Bar at Hope Valley, yes we play games in a bar when it is closed to drinkers; I was doing my normal multitasking and needle pointing while playing. Since I was already working an 18-mesh canvas, which to you non-stitchers means the tiny little petit point canvas, I had my strongest readers on. The ornament is one of Africa in celebration of our trip and it has a grey mountain as well as a different grey elephant on it. In the dark of the bar I stitched two whole threads of one grey called Heron, on the mountain and then two whole threads of the other grey called Steel Grey on the same mountain.

Only when I went to pull a fifth thread from my bag did I realize that I had used two different colors. I showed my friend Christy the canvas and asked her with her young eyes to see if I in fact had made this error. Even she at first thought it was all right, but did question it. I went to the next room where I could use the power of the sun to examine my work. Yes, I had used two different colors — it was a rookie mistake.

It was then that I pulled out my “Bra Light”, actually a baseball cap light Russ had given me, and clipped it to the ever-steady intersection of the underwires of my bra at the center. Bright light shone on my gaff and I was able to cut away the offending yarn and start over.

Why was I not wearing my bra light in the first place? My eyes are too old, the existing light was too dim, and my Mah Jongg friends needed something good to laugh at. Me with an illuminated cleavage is good fodder for ridicule. Here is what I know, I want good strong light when I have tiny work to do, I want soft gentle light when anyone is taking a picture of me and I want just enough light to recognize my winning Mah Jongg tile as it is being thrown. All that light is not the same; perhaps I am doing too many things all at once.

Reality Bites

I was just in the middle of a great dream during my jet lagged induced nap and I heard a phone ringing. A phone ringing? I had not heard a phone ringing for the last twelve days while in Africa. Where I am? I instinctively reached over to my right and picked up my cell phone and said hello.

“Mom?” It was Carter !!! Oh no it was Carter at camp, where she does not have access to a phone unless something is wrong. “Mom, I’m alright, but I fell and hit my head.” Still feeling drugged up from thirty hours of flying starting in Zambia yesterday through Joberg to Atlanta and finally home today it took me a minute to process what was going on. After talking to Carter a few minutes she passed me on to the camp Doctor who told me she thought Carter did not have a concussion, but they are taking her for an x-ray just to see how they might need to modify her camp activities.

I asked to talk to Carter again since I am now an expert at telephone diagnosis when she falls. This fall did not involve a horse, thank goodness, but just a low ropes course and a group of tires. Carter did not sound confused or disoriented in anyway, but just getting to talk to each other after two and a half weeks of camp induced silence did make her sad for us.

There is nothing worse than being away from home when you are sick of hurt. Mom and Dad are really the best medicine. Two years ago when Carter went to Taiwan during the summer and lived with a family and went to school she got a stomach bug and was sick for a day. Russ and I happened to be in Seattle celebrating our twentieth anniversary and got a call from Carter halfway around the world. Of course she was fine by the next day, but at that moment she just wanted her Mom and there was nothing I could do about it but reassure her that this too shall pass.

Five weeks away from Carter is a long time for me, but she wanted to do these three back-to-back camp sessions so badly and she is at the age where she wants to spend more time away from the family than with the family. So while I had her on the phone in this vulnerable, head injured, I wish my Mom was with me state, I asked her if she wanted me to come and see her Saturday when she had the break in camp sessions. “Could you do that and bring Daddy too?”

“Of course. I’ll call camp tomorrow.”

“Are you allowed to that?” she asks, having been living in the rule following world of camp for the last two and a half weeks.

“Yes.” I reassured her.

No easy re-entry back into real life. Our perfect vacation, really the best trip I have ever been on in my life is over. We got home and the house was fine, only my vegetable garden took a beating from lack of rain, Shay was excited to see us and I got four really happy letters from camp filling me in on Carter’s first session. We unpacked our tiny suit cases and put all our safari wear in the laundry, happy not to half to wear khaki. I went to the grocery store and bought nine different fruits knowing that the scale will be unhappy with me in the morning, but I would not change a thing about our trip. We saw so many amazing animals and birds, met the most fun and interesting people, we ate really good food and now it’s back to reality. It bites.

Too Many Hot Dogs

Carter is at camp and we are leaving for Africa so I wrote a few letters to Carter that my friend Christy is going to mail every couple of days so that Carter does not go forever without and real mail at camp. Writing letters to camp is hard enough when not that much is going on at home, but writing in advance is next to impossible. Maybe I could have predicted what might go on in the world, but I decided that was just too weird, even for me, a person who writes something weird everyday.

Instead I decided to pull out the book I made for Carter with all the great quotes she said when she was two and three. I guess I was smart enough then to write the wonderful things she said down to share with Russ, who was on the road a lot. I’m glad I did because as far as I’m concerned two and three are when kids say the best stuff.

Apparently hot dogs played a major role in Carter’s life as is evident in these two little stories:

In November our Ukrainian babysitter said, “I gave Carter two sausages for lunch.” Carter interjected, “you mean hot dogs.”

“In my country they are called sausages.”

Carter replies, “God says, in our country they are called hot dogs.”

Following along the same theme:

A babysitter says to Carter, “I have a little tummy ache.”

Carter says, “O.K., I am a doctor. What did you eat for lunch?”

“A hot dog and fries.”

“Well, a hot dog is O.K., but you need to ask your Mommy before you eat French fries. That will be $500 please.”

Based on the obvious large hot dog consumption in our house back then Carter said the following to me one day:

“My heart takes good care of me. And I say, ‘Good Luck!’”

Good luck indeed. Thank goodness we hardly ever have a hot dog around anymore.

One of my very favorite things Carter ever said was a month before her third birthday:

“It is so great in my world, when the sun is up or the sun is down.”

I hope it is great in your world. Don’t eat too many hot dogs and if you want fries, please save yourself $500 and ask your Mommy first.

Professional Complainer

Tonight in a rare, but very enjoyable night time Mah Jongg game the talk at my table turned to an eating establishment that all the players frequented and some bad choices and worse excuses for the choices they had made. Now I am fond of this place, so don’t ask me to name it, because I am sure they will turn this current situation around.

As I described in detail the mistakes and my conversations with management my friend Carolyn commented that I was thorough in my complaint. ‘Carolyn,” I responded, “don’t you know I am a professional complainer.” She acted as if in the 18 years I have known her she had never heard me complain.

Perhaps she had never heard me complain because she has never done anything wrong, at least to me, but I find it shocking that she was unaware of my professional status. I am a tough customer, but I am also an ardent supporter. So if I find something lacking in the customer service arena I try and constructively point out why it makes me unhappy.

I know that not all people who I complain to are thrilled I am doing it, but consider the alternative. First, if I have encountered something wrong I am probably not the first person who has felt that way. Second, most people don’t bother to complain to the person who is actually in charge, but just leave unhappy to never return again and worse tell ten people how unhappy they were. Third, I always offer evidence-based complaints with positive suggestions on how to grow the business.

My professional designation was earned when I was a sales and marketing consultant, but had been honed for many years before that as an armature tough cookie. My father has mentioned on more than one occasion that he is surprised some businesses had stayed open after I received very poor customer service from them more than once. See, if my direct confrontations of poor service don’t improve after a reasonable amount of time then I go right for the juggler. But at least I returned to the business to see if they even tried.

The difference between a professional complainer and a whiny unhappy person is that the professional will praise and frequent great establishments all day long. A whinny person is never satisfied. I may be demanding, but I will never whine about anything.

The Secret to Anti-Aging

Even with a boat load of anti SPAM controls somehow my computer still puts “Anti-aging Secrets” into my You-Better-Read-This mailbox. Erectile dysfunction, balding, You Won the Irish Sweepstakes, Our Time Dating and extended warrantees for cars that we got rid of long ago all thankfully get trapped in my junk box, but not anti-aging. I guess my computer knows I am a woman, am happily married, sold the Dodge Durango and will not fall for the sweepstakes scam. But my computer knows I am aging. Not a big leap of some coder’s intuition. We are all aging.

Here is the real secret, we are all aging and at exactly the same speed. The answer to anti-aging is no secret it is death. Since I have been inundated with these pitches I looked more closely at them to see if they were for some kind of assisted suicide and thankfully they are not. The e-mails are for some strange fruit or all natural injections that claim to stop the clock, or make you look as if it has been turned back many years.

Since my computer is not getting any smarter I would like to register in the spam hall of records that I do not mind aging. I am not looking for Dr. Oz to tell me how to look as young as someone who could be my child. Aging is a privilege that is given to the living. I am not interested in being one of the dead right now.

Using sunscreen to prevent cancer, eating right to be healthy, working out to have a body that functions well, wearing lipstick so my lips don’t sting from being chapped, all about function not form. So hawkers of crazy ass products stop calling them anti-aging solutions and tell me how they will make me feel better as I do the inevitable and that is get older, wiser and hopefully more loved. And no, I don’t need Our Time Dating or Meet Senior People to do that.

Speaking of being loved, I would like to thank all you nice readers who sent me kind messages and a bunch of WooHoo’s yesterday. So much for my quiet moment, as well as so much for reaching my goal — I got on the scale this morning and was up two tenths of a pound. I promise not to proclaim when I lose that weight!

Big Fun Father’s Day

I am the one who made my Dad a father. I am the first-born. My Dad was young when I got here. Despite being what I would consider now too young to properly raise a baby he seemed to figure it out well as he went along.

The advantage of having my young father was fun was always close at hand. I was lucky that I was an only child for the first three and a half years of my life and then there were just two of us until I was over eight so my father treated us like playmates in those early years.

One of my earliest memories is of being at the Dayton Country Club when I was about three and my father would be standing in the water encouraging me to jump off the side of the pool and swim to him. I know we have a picture of me with some kind of Styrofoam bubble belted to my middle so I was not going to drown, but my Dad knew I should learn to swim as early as possible. I bet I only wore that bubble a very short time.

The other theme that surrounds my father is that he is big and everything he ever does is big. Couple big with fun and my Dad was a kid’s dream. When we used to go to Pawleys Island for the summer other kids would get an inflatable raft or regular ‘ole car tire sized inner tube to play in the waves while their parents sat in chairs on the beach. Not my dad. He would take us into Georgetown Tire and Rubber Company and buy the biggest tractor tire inner tube they made and get it inflated, tie rope around it so we had a way to pull it around in the water and drag ourselves up onto it.

The multiple rope handles came in handy when we tied it to the car roof of our navy blue Ford Country Squire with the brown fake wood paneling and drove the giant inflatable back to the beach. My cousins and sisters and I could all ride that inner tube on the waves at the same time making us a danger to anyone in our path.

Pulling that big inner tube back out over the waves was never a problem because my Dad was always willing to be out in the water with us. He taught us all how to body surf and jump headfirst ducking into the waves so that the powerful water did not throw us around. Of course thanks to my Dad we all were good swimmers.

Somehow we never seemed tired on those vacations at Pawleys. My Dad and my Uncle Wilson would make us stay up until is was really dark and then they would put on the biggest fireworks show even though it was not the fourth of July. After what seemed liked hundreds of rockets with big balls of red, green and white sparkling balls exploding from them were set off we would eat popsicles and fall into to big sleep in our beds. We would wake up early to my Dad cooking a big breakfast with a new fun plan to go crabbing and ride our inner tubes down the backwater to the inlet as the tide was going out.

And although he taught me all the important stuff about working hard and being good to people today on this Father’s day I am most happy for all the fun I’ve had with my Dad. I’m also thankful that he had me so young so that I’ve had him for so long. So happy Father’s Day to my Big Fun Dad.

Shop In My Garden

This spring I planted my vegetable garden with the mind that I was not always going to be around during peak harvest time. I put in Arugula and lettuce. The lettuce has been wiped out by some tend leaf loving varmint, but apparently said rotten animal has an unsophisticated pallet and does not like the spicy greens. The good thing about the arugula is that it is a fast growing crop even though I started it from seed so I have been able to enjoy it.

I was planning on having a salad for dinner since tomorrow I am splurging and going out for afternoon tea as my main meal for the day. I have written extensively about my love of afternoon tea as the best meal ever. The only problem with tea is that it is probably the most fattening fare I ever encounter. Tea sandwiches, scones, pastries and cakes — nothing healthy on the menu, with the exception of the actual tea.

Tonight as I pulled in the driveway from picking Carter up at work we barely had enough time to run into the garage before the heavens opened up and dumped baby swimming pool amounts of water from the sky. So now I stand hungrily looking out the window at the garden waiting for the deluge to stop so I can go out and gather my dinner. I could have planned ahead and cut my greens earlier in the day, but somehow they wilt in my house, even refrigerated. I am not sure how grocery store greens keep their crispness, when my fresh picked can’t.

As happy as I am to get rain for my garden I hope this very heavy rain does not knock all the blossoms off my squash, cucumbers and eggplant. Those blossoms are needed to get pollinated and turn to fruit. If I lose this first round I probably won’t be around for the second round to come to fruition and turn to vegetables. Sometimes gardening is heart breaking and I feel for farmers who are at the mercy of the weather.

For the past week and a half I have been watching my cherry tomato plants grow more and more green globes, but am wondering when one will decide to turn even the slightest shade of red. The green bean plants have some thin tender beans. I have to keep an eye on them because they can go from too thin to though and old very quickly. The pepper plants are always the last to give any hint of producing a crop. I can go away for a month and come back and they still will not show any signs of deciding to birth a baby.

If this rain does not stop soon I might just run out with an umbrella and cut off a few basil leaves to eat with a farmer’s market tomato I have sitting here. Thank goodness for the success of real farmers because if I had to depend only on my own crops I would be very hungry, hey maybe I would be very skinny too.

Rule Followers

I stopped by the needlepoint store today to turn in two ornaments and pick up fibers for four more projects as I plan out what I am taking to Africa. The stitchers table was full of all the regulars, including my friend Elizabeth from Greensboro who I am in an ornament contest with this year.

Elizabeth is a far superior stitcher to me as well as a very prolific worker. At the end of last season she asked me how many ornaments I had done and since it was a good, no, great many she decided I was a worthy opponent and she challenged me to see who could finish the most ornaments this year. So far I am winning because I only make ornaments and she does belts, pillows, larger framed pieces as well as a giant kneeler for her daughters’ school chapel. That being said, she still has all most three months and could easily bypass me in the end.

Needle pointers tend to be rule followers. If you are doing a certain stitch you need to do it one way or it is a different stitch and that is a different rule. I like to work on one project at a time because my rule is to finish. Elizabeth has a rule of five, which means she can have only five different projects she is working at the same time. Today Elizabeth announced that she was going to work on her counted piece until three o’clock and then switch to the kneeler because she has a deadline for that piece to be turned in.

In our stitching group Kate is the rule enforcer so when three o’clock rolled around she altered Elizabeth it was time to switch projects. That was when Elizabeth evoked her codicil, which is her way of changing her mind and breaking her own rule. She said she would change projects when she finished the section she was currently working on.

I jumped right on that codicil idea. As a creator and follower of rules I love having a way out of my own self imposed restrictions, but then I really got to thinking about it. I have lost weight this go-round, by myself without the aid of a professional weight loss program by creating some sound rules and following them. I realized that when I have gained weight in the past it was because I had codicils to what I knew were the eating rules I needed to follow.

One failed rule I created was the “one bite rule.” I allowed myself one bite of anything. Big mistake! It is amazing how many calories there are in one bite of many different things. That rule started as a codicil and ended with seventy gained pounds.

The rule of rules for me is create a rule, measure it’s success and improve the rule. Then every once in a while cut myself a tiny amount of slack and just break the rule just to keep from becoming an uptight pain who no one wants to hang with. We all have our own ways.

Summer Mothering

After a two-day break from school Carter started today with her full-time volunteer job that she has to do everyday she is home and not at camp or on vacation with me. She is working towards getting the Mayor’s award, which is given to kids who volunteer at least 100 hours during their summer break.

Working 100 hours for free is harder than you think. First of all most non-profits don’t want the liability of teenagers so they don’t take young volunteers without adult supervision. I don’t blame them because I am sure there are some parents who might want to drop younger kids off at a non-profit and use it as a babysitting service.

Carter has years of work experience from working at her barn so she was able to get a job at an animal rescue organization. She is the kitten room specialist and front office helper. Turns out it is still work for this mother because I have to get up and drive her to work and pick her up at the end of the day. Her driver’s license can’t come too soon. I am hoping some days her father can take her.

I was proud of Carter when I dropped her off, not exactly certain what her day was going to be, but going in willing to do what it took. I expected a text early in the day, but did not get one until she took her lunch break to let me know what time to pick her up. Turns out her love of organization and order are a real bonus in her job.

Apparently the care of kittens is very strict and Carter learned how to dissemble the three cage tower, clean it and reassemble it ensuring that the exact color coded towels go back in the right spots along with the heating pads and bowls. She also got to play, feed and clean the kittens before going up front to do the jobs she says she was born to do, alphabetize and file.

Carter says she liked the mother cats the best because they love to snuggle. I guess that it is Carter’s summer mothering job. She already is recognizing the perils of having offspring too young. I think this is the best lesson any teenager could learn.